How (Not) to Get Rid of a Body (2024) s01e04 Episode Script

[metal grating]
The case was a true
whodunit mystery.
[Jody]
We had remains
but no identification.
It was just very cold,
very calculated.
Whoever did this,
they had a plan.
They were methodical.
Who would go through these
lengths to get rid of a body?
Investigators had an impossible
case to solve.
This is the Super Bowl,
the crime of all crimes.
We have to identify this victim
in order to catch the killer.
I was wondering,
did we meet our match?
[suspenseful music playing]
[Jody]
On Friday, July 12,
2002, the Pennsylvania State
Police received a call about
a potential body
that was found in Jackson
Township, Monroe County.
[distant sirens wailing]
Our team responded to
process the scene.
It was a pull-off site along
a very rural road.
The body was located in two
55-gallon burn barrels.
Because of the level of
decomposition, and the burning,
the smell was
absolutely putrid.
So our team had to get
respirators from
a local fire company.
It was obvious that there was
no way this was an accident.
It was brutal homicide.
[Shawn]
I've worked hundreds of
homicides, but this is one of
the most gruesome cases
I ever experienced.
I knew that this was gonna be
a difficult case to solve.
[indistinct radio chatter]
investigators then spoke with
the discoverer of the body,
George Newhart.
George Newhart said he was
operating a septic business
and so when his truck was full
up, he would pull into
the location and pump it out
into this tanker.
When he got there, he got out of
the truck and now, this is a man
who deals in human waste,
and he was overwhelmed by
the -- the stench.
[Shawn]
And he found two barrels that
were somewhat smoldering and as
he started sifting through some
things a little bit, he realized
this was human remains.
[indistinct radio chatter]
[Will]
The first person that
investigators started looking
at was George.
They checked his whereabouts,
they checked his work logs,
it actually checked out.
So George was not
a person of interest.
So investigators got to put
the body together, they've got
to identify this person.
[Shawn]
It was very late when
investigators initially got
there, so the investigation
really got going on
the following day,
on July 13th.
[sustained mysterious tones]
[Jody]
In one barrel was
the victim's torso,
in the other barrel was
the victim's
head and extremities.
Also in the barrel, were
maggots, some of which were
burnt, which tells us that
the victim has been
dead for -- for some time.
[birds singing]
[Will]
So investigators know that at
this point from that call
and the time that George,
the person who found the body,
was at the properties there's
a 10-hour window from when this
body could have been dumped.
[heavy breathing through mask]
[Jody]
Our team processed
the scene to remove
the victim from
both barrels.
And they sort of had to figure
out, OK, what body parts do
we have?
What don't we have here?
And they put down a sheet on
the ground and started
putting this human back
together again.
At that point,
we couldn't determine if it was
a man or a woman.
Due to the fact that
they were dismembered,
decomposing, and burnt.
And given the condition
of the victim,
DNA testing was gonna
take a while.
It was definitely clear to me
that this person or persons
who killed this individual went
through great lengths to try
and dispose of the body
and make sure that
he or she were
never identified.
[birds singing]
[distant cow mooing]
[Jody]
When removing the victim from
the burn barrel,
we discovered a piece of blue
plastic or vinyl,
and we recovered duct tape.
We recovered a rope,
remnants of clothing,
cigarette butts, all these
things that we thought may
or may not be related
to our crime.
But how big is your scene?
Was the victim killed
and dismembered here
or somewhere else?
You don't know.
You're talking about a remote
area of the Poconos.
So it already set the case
into a difficult status because
they are looking at so much
ground to cover.
We had cadaver dogs go through
the woods looking for evidence.
But there's no indication
or evidence that this crime had
occurred here.
This person was killed
and dismembered somewhere else.
[Shawn]
Fortunately, the property did
have a cable going across it,
a 40-foot cable,
and it was low.
There was a lock on it,
and it would have taken two
people to get their vehicle
underneath that cable, one to
hold it up, one to drive
the vehicle up to the barrels.
So we believe there's
two offenders,
and we know that a vehicle had
to enter this property because
there was no evidence of
dragging from the road.
Then the speculation
part started, you know.
Who could have done
anything like this?
It's scary to think of the type
of person who would go to these
lengths to try and get away
with this murder.
[Shawn]
So we are trying to think
like the offender.
Was it someone that got off
the interstate and decided to
dispose of this individual in
these burn barrels?
Or that someone had more of
an intimate knowledge of this
property, being that they knew
that the burned barrels
would be there?
[birds singing]
[low, suspenseful music playing]
When the investigation started,
there's a lot of people working
on it, multiple agencies.
You have this
two-pronged approach.
On one hand, you've got
the investigators looking on
the ground, looking for
witnesses, looking for anyone
with any information about
this crime.
Then on the other hand,
you've got the forensic team
in the lab trying to work on
identifying the body.
[Jody]
As we begin this process,
we know
DNA is gonna take a while.
But right out of the gate at
the autopsy,
we're looking at the victim's
head and extremities.
And there's one thing we know --
the victim is male.
[Shawn]
He was stabbed multiple times.
His right orbital was crushed.
His nose was fractured.
His tibia was broken.
Not only was this person
dismembered, they went through
a lot of trauma.
[Jody]
Seeing what happened to this
individual makes me sick.
He's cut up into pieces,
torched, and thrown out
like garbage.
And we consider that
a challenge to find the truth
and bring those responsible
to justice.
[Shawn]
We know that the body was
wrapped in a blue plastic.
And our forensic units
looked at a logo
and did some research.
[Jody]
We discovered the logo on it,
and it's a popular brand.
They make air mattresses.
We don't know where or when
the mattress was purchased.
We don't know how
it's related to this crime,
or where it fits in.
It's just another piece
to the puzzle.
We know that there's a killer
out there.
So it's very crucial to
identify that victim.
[Jody]
The quickest way of identifying
the victim would be
through fingerprints.
But the hands were
severely dehydrated.
They were leathery, very hard.
They're shriveled up.
Being exposed to the extreme
heat, they're very small,
almost like that of a child's.
That makes dealing with that
piece of human
fingertip difficult.
The left thumb was the best
fingerprint that we had
to work with, but it was small,
so it was a slow process.
[Will]
The killers had a plan to cover
all their tracks.
You don't put pieces of a body
into two separate barrels
and set them on fire unless
you don't want to be found.
[fire crackling]
[Shawn]
It was so disgusting --
you don't get
that smell out of your head.
Who would go through these
lengths to get rid of a body?
We knew that we were dealing
with something
very evil at this point.
[crickets chirping]
[fire crackling]
[Shawn]
We have an unidentified
individual that was
murdered horribly,
dismembered and burned in
a couple burn barrels.
We want to identify this person
at all costs, because ultimately
we want a family to know
what happened to
their loved one,
number one.
Number two, we have to identify
that person in order to
catch the killer.
[Shawn]
So weeks, they turn
into months,
and we were thinking outside
the box and doing everything
we could to
identify the victim.
It's very frustrating with
an unidentified person when
you can't make that connection
to who they are.
It feels like
the investigation stalls.
So my partner reached out to
a forensic artist,
and he recreates with clay
and his artistry and gives us
a face of this victim.
We were hoping to get some type
of face out there.
We're working with the media to
get this information out there
because we have to identify
this victim.
We were doing
everything we could.
However, the victim's identity
still wasn't known.
There's a family connected to
this person.
The investigators were
frustrated.
Can you imagine trying to
solve a crime
where the evidence is
basically burned in pieces?
[Shawn]
So at this point, we're doing
everything we can.
We're looking at new avenues,
anything we can do to think
outside the box and move
forward with this investigation.
You have the human emotion
and the professional emotion,
but we were never gonna
give up.
We weren't going to stop
fighting for that victim.
And so we continued
and continued and continued
to investigate.
We believe there's two
offenders based on the cable.
Whoever did this,
they had a plan.
They were methodical.
So you have to think,
did the person or people
responsible for this really get
away with murder?
Then we get about a year
outside of the investigation,
and there was a very well-known
case back in the summer of 2003
that came to light with
an individual named
Hugo Selenski.
[news broadcast]
Hugo Selenski is accused of
killing two people,
burning and then burying
their remains at
a Kingston Township home
where he lived.
Three other sets of remains
were found here.
He's a suspect in those
deaths too.
These murders were committed in
May of 2002, just two months
before they found the body in
Jackson Township.
Could Hugo Selenski be
connected to this murder?
[Jody]
There were a lot of
similarities between
Hugo Selenski's crimes
and this crime.
He used duct tape to
bind his victims.
He brutally bludgeoned
his victims.
He burned his victims to
ash, literally.
[Shawn]
This happened only miles from
where our scene was
of the burn barrels
and the dismembered body.
So it really piqued
our interest, and we wanted to
find out, is there a nexus
between the two cases?
Does our victim have any
connection to Hugo Selenski?
We knew we had to keep pressing
on, and it really all came back
to identifying the victim.
I had this fingerprint from
our victim's left thumb,
but it was dehydrated,
shriveled up.
So I started thinking,
what can we do?
We're looking at this print,
looks like
a child's fingerprint.
what if we enlarge it
incrementally and run it
through the system as many
times as it takes,
little by little, enlarge,
submit, enlarge, submit.
And, you know, fortunately,
it paid off.
[Shawn]
Lo and behold, in November of
2003, we get a hit on
a fingerprint, and our victim
is now given a name
of Robert Roudebush.
[Jody]
It was such a great victory
and great relief.
So as excited as I am,
as we all are,
like our work's just beginning.
Who is Robert Roudebush?
Who would want to kill him?
So we reached out
to the family.
We want to learn as much about
Bob as possible.
And once we talked to them,
we started getting a better
picture of who Bob is.
Bob was my stepbrother.
His mother and my father were
married in 1981.
When I first met Bob
and got to know him,
he was very fun-loving,
he was kind,
and seemed like someone who
just loved life and loved
people, and was just trying to
find his own way.
I had moved to Reno and was
starting work at the new hotel.
His mother was also starting to
work in the same area.
Bob was a security guard at
one of the casinos.
So many times we would meet up
with him at the casino.
The three of us would just have
a really good time together.
Bob was just part
of the family.
We all became
a family together.
Bob was trying to find his way.
He decided
to go into the Marine Corps.
After the Marines, Bob had
relocated to the East Coast.
Bob's mother told me, you know,
like, that he had moved
to Pennsylvania,
that he had a girlfriend.
She expressed concern,
because he had not contacted her
on her birthday.
No matter what, he would never
miss her birthday.
And then in the winter,
she called me and told me that
the Corning police had come to
the home to tell her that
his remains had been identified
as a murder victim
in Pennsylvania.
I was horrified.
I just couldn't imagine someone
doing that to another human
being, and then just dumping
like a piece of garbage.
How could they be so cold?
They didn't care about anything
except covering up
their own heinous act.
[Shawn]
Before we knew Bob's identity,
we conducted hundreds
and hundreds of interviews.
Now that we have his identity,
we're going to conduct hundreds
and hundreds more.
We are going to get to
the bottom of this.
We have to do everything
possible to catch the killer.
It was definitely one of those
cases where I thought,
maybe we've met our match.
[calm music playing]
So we were working on this
investigation for a year
and a half, and finally
we have an identification
of the victim,
Bob Roudebush.
[Jody]
It's like a shot of adrenaline.
But we still didn't have
a crime scene as to where
the victim was killed at.
These individuals were smart
enough to transport that body
and did a pretty good job of
destroying it almost to
the point of not
identifying the victim.
Fortunately, that
didn't happen.
Through interviews,
we identify Bob's girlfriend.
We go to talk to her.
She had not seen him for
quite some time.
She never filed a missing
person report because
their relationship was
sort of over.
It was strained.
She kind of moved on
with her life at this point.
We asked, "Is there anyone that
would want to hurt Bob?
"Was there any connection to
an individual named Hugo
Selenski, who killed
multiple people?"
[Jody]
When you have Hugo Selenski
burning bodies on his property,
it's only logical to think that
there may be --
there may be
a connection between the two.
[Shawn]
She told us she wasn't aware
of anybody that
wanted to hurt Bob.
And she had no connection to
Hugo Selenski.
Periodically, I'd find myself
going out and searching just to
see if there had been anything
new about what had happened
and any suspects.
There was sadness, there was
an emptiness that was there,
and it was just so hard.
[Jody]
At this point,
you can't give up.
You gotta keep on going.
But at the end of the day,
it got very frustrating because
every lead, every idea,
everything we tried
went nowhere.
Around the time we released
the identity to the press,
we received a call from James
Britton, an inmate who says
he has information regarding
this investigation.
James Britton had recently been
extradited from California on
a theft charge, and was sitting
in that Columbia County prison.
He said he knew the victim,
so this, of course,
gave investigators that hope
that this could be
the break in the case.
We went down to
the Columbia County Prison,
and I conducted an interview.
He tells us, in 2002,
he was living in the city of
Wilkes-Barre
with his wife, Stacy.
[Will] James Britton tells
investigators that he was
friends with the victim
because they were ex-Marines,
but he thinks that the person
who may have did this
was his neighbor,
Larry Tooley.
Larry Tooley was also a Marine,
so the three of them kind of
all got along.
James said that Larry
was dating a girl
that Bob was starting to have
sort of an affair with.
And as time went on, bad blood
started between Bob and Larry.
James said that Bob was
supposed to come to a barbecue
at the Brittons' house on July
4th, but he didn't show up,
and James said he never talked
to him again.
Then James said that in July
that same month,
that Bob went missing,
James went on to tell us
a story how he was assaulted by
Larry Tooley.
[Will]
James says that Larry
pistol-whipped him
and threatened to rape his wife
all over a stolen MP3 player.
But then James
drops a bombshell.
Larry tells him to keep your
mouth shut, or I will cave in
your skull like Bob.
James was completely putting it
out there that Larry Tooley
had to be the person that
killed Bob,
and that he didn't want to
end up like him.
This is a shocking development
for the investigators.
Now, Larry Tooley was
well-known to the investigators
because Larry Tooley, at that
point in time, was incarcerated
on murder charges.
In November of 2002,
Larry killed a 16-year-old
during a home invasion.
Now, Bob was discovered in
July of 2002.
This is only four months apart.
So there was a lot of interest
in Larry Tooley at this point.
James was very believable,
and he became
this investigation's new
best friend.
[Will]
So at this point,
investigators have some
information, but this case is
still a mystery.
So of course, police have to
start corroborating all of this
information from James.
They want to get ahold of
James's wife, Stacy.
She is currently in jail in
San Diego.
[Shawn]
I reached out to Stacy Britton.
She immediately goes into Larry
Tooley and talking about being
assaulted, her husband being
pistol whipped by him.
Now this is Stacy's words,
which were very similar
to her husband's.
She said, I'm gonna cave your
skull in and have
a mother [bleep] barbecue.
So she added that in there
too, a barbecue,
burning, burn barrels,
Bob's remains were lit on fire.
At this point, I'm thinking
we are really onto something.
Stacy Britton kind of
corroborated that same
information, but she gave
a few extra tidbits.
[Shawn]
So Stacy explained
that herself,
Larry Tooley, Bob Roudebush,
and her husband, James,
would go back and forth between
Wilkes-Barre and Newark,
New Jersey for business.
I said, "Well, would you ever
stop anywhere?"
And she said, "Are you talking
about North Road?"
She said, "Well, my brother
lives near there,
real close to there."
And I'm thinking the whole time
I can't believe that she just
said "North Road" to me,
that was a big clue,
a light bulb went off.
I knew from that point on,
Stacy was gonna be
my second best friend in
the investigation.
But I had no idea what was
ahead on this case.
[ominous music playing]
[Shawn]
I knew that once the victim was
identified, we would make moves
in the right direction.
At this point,
we're thinking Larry Tooley,
and, or Hugo Selenski, have to
be tied into the murder of
Bob Roudebush.
So we're gonna explore every
possible aspect before we make
our next move.
[Michael]
Larry Tooley was
a known killer.
And he had access to where
Bob's remains were discovered.
So all of that -- all of that
was the focus initially.
Investigators know from James
and Stacy Britton that Bob
possibly was sleeping with
Tooley's girlfriend.
So this could be
a possible motive.
Investigators right away say,
"We need to get
more information."
[Shawn]
We knew Larry Tooley
was incarcerated.
So we went to the next
best person.
We went to
Larry Tooley's girlfriend.
She says, "Listen, I wasn't
having an affair with
Bob Roudebush."
She said, "They're liars,
don't believe anything
that they say."
She actually described them
as scumbags.
And she said some of
the Brittons' information was
kind of exaggerated.
In fact, the girlfriend said
she only saw Bob
and Larry Tooley together on
one occasion.
It was very different than what
the Brittons had told me.
So we thought maybe the Brittons
were using that
as a deflection,
you know, and trying to give,
like, a smokescreen.
They definitely knew more than
they were saying.
[Shawn]
The Brittons had been
very believable.
However, we were starting to
think, I wonder if this is
a story they created to push
blame off themselves.
We know that there were some
inconsistencies in
their stories
that were red flags.
Are they omitting things?
Are they lying to us?
[Jody]
Anyone could have done it.
We have a pool of people that
are possible suspects,
but we still need that one clue
or piece of evidence
to push us in
the right direction.
[Shawn]
So we give it some time.
We heard the Brittons were
getting out of prison,
and we tried to initiate
another interview with both of
them together.
It seemed to me like James
did wanna talk.
However, Stacy was having no
part of that,
and she shut down the interview.
[Jody]
We have all these leads.
We're looking at all these
puzzle pieces floating out
there, but we don't have
a focal point
because we don't have
a crime scene.
And it's frustrating.
It's, you know, hard as hell,
but Robert has a family,
and we'd like to give them
answers and give them
some closure.
The police were working
diligently to try
and solve his murder.
It was just so hard.
We needed to know what happened
and why it happened.
[Will]
Whoever committed this crime
planned this in such a way
where they wouldn't get caught.
There's a lot of roads that
lead off in different
directions but it doesn't seem
like it's leading to the person
or people who committed
this murder.
[Jody]
Finally, in 2015, we get a call
from Stacy Britton.
Apparently, she wants to
talk to us.
I couldn't believe that she was
reaching out again
after all these years.
She said she and James weren't
husband and wife anymore,
but they were living together
and things weren't going well.
She says she's in fear of
James, and her life's coming
apart, and she needs to talk to
somebody about this,
and I could tell
she was upset,
but she wanted to tell us
a story.
I knew that that was
a tipping point,
and I was never prepared for
what she was about to tell.
On August 14, 2015,
we finally got that break.
During the phone call
from Stacy,
she told us that
her ex-husband, James Britton,
actually killed Bob Roudebush.
If James Britton killed Bob,
I knew that we had to act
on it quick.
The case was ice cold and then
it went red hot,
just like that.
And we felt we had enough to
charge James.
So we took James into custody
and we set up
a recorded interview.
And that's where James went into
his version of what
actually happened on
July 4, 2002.
At this point Stacy and James
are both trying to pin it on
each other and investigators
have to figure out
what really happened to Bob.
[Michael]
Now it started to become more
like a cat and mouse scenario
and with every increase in
detail, Stacy was becoming more
and more of
an active participant.
[Shawn]
We had more questions.
So my partner brought Stacy
back to one of our state police
stations, and that's where
they conducted
her videotaped interview.
She sort of excluded herself
from all the heavy duty,
the killing part.
However, she proceeded
to talk about
what had happened to Bob
and the dismemberment,
her own confession to what
she had done.
I was ecstatic.
[Michael]
Stacy went into all that awful
detail about how she disposed
of the body, and using garden
shears, and a sledgehammer,
and an axe, just awful stuff.
[Shawn]
She said after
the dismemberment, they had to
get the body out of there.
So they used an air mattress.
They carried Bob's remains.
And they proceeded to go to
North Road.
And someone had to
hold the cable.
[Shawn]
And Stacy
lit the remains on fire
and they fled there.
I think Stacy thought because
she had blamed her husband for
killing Bob, that she was
going to be OK,
and wouldn't be arrested.
[Michael]
It appeared Stacy was going to
beat James to the punch by
blaming it on him before
he could blame her.
I called it "the nuclear
option," because it wound up
bringing both of them down.
They each admitted enough about
their own involvement to
clearly make them culpable
in the murder.
[Shawn]
For years, we heard this story
from the Brittons about Larry
Tooley committing this crime,
and there was
the Hugo Selenski angle
as well.
Deep down inside myself and my
partner, we always thought,
there's just more to this.
It doesn't make sense.
[Jody]
They thought they committed
the perfect murder,
but they were wrong.
[Shawn]
They got rid of the body,
got rid of evidence.
Their stories were very
similar, however,
the devil's in the details.
And I think ultimately it was
their own words that --
that was the best evidence.
So investigators arrest both
James and Stacy.
In October of 2016, James took
the plea and was sentenced to
15 to 30 years in state prison
for murder in the third degree,
abuse of corpse, and perjury.
But Stacy insisted on
going to trial.
[news broadcast]
After 14 years of police trying
to find the person
who allegedly killed
46-year-old Robert Roudebush,
Stacy Britton is heading into
a Monroe County courtroom to
face charges.
[Will]
November of 2016,
Stacy Britton is convicted of
first-degree murder,
hindering,
apprehension, and conspiracy.
She's sentenced
to life in prison
without the possibility
of parole.
What she did to
get rid of Bob, it was worse
than a horror movie.
You can't do this to a human
being and get away with it.
[Jody]
This is the Super Bowl,
the crime of all crimes,
and I'm proud to be a part of
the team that brought justice
to the victim.
I think it's so interesting
that it was their own mouths
that ended up doing them in.
They had to tell on
one another.
They just had such a volatile
relationship
that it got the best of them.
And I am very, very thankful
that the police stayed on this
because nobody deserves what
was done to Bob, nobody.
♪♪
[metal dragging]
You have no choice
but to think the worst.
Christina had been missing
longer than she had been alive.
We had always hoped to bring
Christina home.
Whoever did this really
knew what they were doing
and did not want her found.